The explosive growth of the Internet over recent years has resulted in many different types of traders offering for sale goods and services over the Internet. In many instances, goods offered for sale may be supplied or delivered electronically over the Internet and are often provided in the form of information that may be of immediate or direct use to Internet consumers. It is common for information to be printed by the user once the information is accessed from an Internet website of the seller.
The provision of such information (or other goods and services) over the Internet, and the consequential printing (or delivery) thereof, are not without problems. Specifically, where a user desires to purchase either an image or a text document, it is necessary for the user to perform a financial transaction with the seller, typically with the aid of a credit card facility and an interface to some financial institution. Further, such services can only be provided when the user has access to a computer terminal which provides direct access to the website of the seller and into which the user may input any password protection codes and the like. Whilst such an arrangement may not present substantial difficulty when the user has access to their own (eg. home or office) personal computing device, such is not the case when the user is mobile or otherwise at a location using a device where a personal computing device having the requisite Internet connection capabilities is unavailable.
A further difficulty with such arrangements is that the user must know the Internet location of the seller and the particular documents or images desired to be purchased. Where the specific Internet address (i.e. Uniform Resource Locator (URL)) is not known, the user must search for the location. Such a search is typically performed using a computer device, typically involving use of a browser application and entailing a certain amount of keyboard data entry of search parameters. Such a search may be time consuming and possibly unsuccessful.